When it comes to social, reach alone no longer tells the whole story. So what does? Talent leads, social strategists, and creators reveal what’s actually moving the needle right now, and why the answer has less to do with how many people see your content than who chooses to engage with it.
Kensington Grey
Krystal Fahie, Talent Director, Kensington Grey
"One thing we’ve really noticed this year is that reach doesn’t equal revenue anymore. Brands are looking for creators who can actually convert, and that comes down to trust and having a community that listens. We’re also seeing brands look beyond traditional storytelling. A creator’s professional background, corporate experience, or a specific niche can give them a real point of difference in a space that is becoming increasingly saturated. We’re seeing this with the rise of creators coming from tech, finance, medicine, and entrepreneurship, who are bringing a level of expertise and credibility that can be incredibly valuable to brands.
“On the brand side, we’re also thinking much more about how we deepen existing relationships instead of always starting net new. There’s already proof of concept, trust, and learnings from past partnerships, so there’s a real opportunity to ask how we can elevate what’s already working. That might mean extending usage around evergreen content that performed well earlier in the year, or thinking bigger about how we can scale the relationship through a long-term ambassadorship, brand trip, giveaway, or larger content concept.
“ROI is still one of the clearest indicators of what’s working, but we’re also looking at what happens after the campaign. Are brands coming back? Are we growing the relationship? Are creators finding new ways to expand the partnership? Some of our micro and mid-tier creators, by reach, are generating seven figures in annual revenue because they’re not thinking about their business as a collection of one-off posts. They’re building long-term brand relationships, developing products and IP, creating new opportunities within those relationships, and diversifying their revenue streams."
Ashley O'Neal, Founder & CEO, Summerside Creative Inc.
“Posting and then going dark for weeks is worse than not posting at all. The algorithm deprioritizes accounts that show up sporadically, and audiences lose the habit of checking in. Consistency doesn’t mean posting constantly, but it does mean showing up on a schedule your audience can count on, even if that’s three times a week instead of daily. It’s very hard to get an account back on track after a long hiatus.
“Native analytics only tell part of the story. If you want to understand whether social is actually driving revenue, you have to look at Google Search Console and GA4 alongside your platform data, because that’s where you see the branded search lift, the site traffic, and the conversions that never show up in a likes-and-reach report. Real ROI lives outside the platform, not inside it.
“Too many brands treat comments as an afterthought, something to glance at and move past. But every comment is a chance to build a relationship in public. When a brand replies thoughtfully instead of with a generic thank you, it signals to everyone watching that there’s a real person behind the account, and that builds trust faster than almost anything else we do.”
Jenny Tsai, Founder & CEO, WeArisma
“The best practice we're seeing right now is measurement: brands getting real results are tracking everything - not just what's tagged or branded. The majority of brand-related content online is never tagged or mentioned directly, so the brands seeing real results are measuring that untagged layer too, not just what was branded or briefed.”
Erin Malone, Vice President, Social Media, J/PR
“The winning formula on social right now is creating content with a dual engine. Social content needs a compelling narrative for humans, and rich context for AI. We’re structuring captions, video transcripts, and comments around clear search intent without losing a client's authentic brand voice. When real people actively discuss, share, and validate your content, LLMs register those genuine engagement signals as proof of authority which then boosts both your social reach and your visibility in AI-generated search results.”
Heather Hosey, Global Social Lead, Accenture Song
“Creators don’t rent you an audience. They build you a community. Brands start under 1% of the conversation about themselves. The other 99% is people talking to each other. That’s where opinions actually get made.
“Creators live in that gap. Part brand, part audience. They’ve got a name and commercial intent, and they’re also just a member of the group. That double membership is the whole trick. It’s why something lands coming from them that dies coming from you.
“The work breaking through right now hands people a role instead of a view. So it’s the first question we put in every brief. What does the audience get to DO? If the answer is ‘watch,’ you made an ad. It’ll perform like one.
“For comms people specifically: creators are earned media with a contract. The second you manage them like a paid channel with a deliverables list, you’ve stripped out the thing you were paying for.
“Agentio analyzed $130M in creator spend across 65,000 ads. Same video, run two ways. With the creator’s handle attached: 19% more clicks, 10% better conversion, 5% cheaper per customer. Same video, same brand, one extra name. That’s trust, and you can now put a number on it. One rule we hold clients to: don’t judge a post on day one. Killing content with $10 behind it is how brands murder their own winners.
“Social has a piece, PR has a piece, paid has a piece, ecomm has a piece. Nobody owns the outcome. Great creator work isn’t hard to make. It’s hard to run! Set up at scale, across markets, with one team accountable for the outcome instead of five teams each holding a corner. Get that right and the creative takes care of itself. Get it wrong and the best idea in the world dies in an approval chain.”
Laura Hidrobo, Host & Content Partner
“As AI makes it easier to create perfectly polished content, I think people are craving the opposite on social media: something real. Not every video needs to be overly curated, scripted or read line by line from a teleprompter. Some of the content that connects best is simply someone speaking in their own words, sharing a real reaction or capturing a candid moment. Use AI as a tool, but don’t let it take the human out of your content.”
Molly Godfrey, Creator
“After five-plus years of building my business on LinkedIn full-time, one of the biggest shifts I’m seeing is that ‘just posting content’ is no longer enough. In 2026, the strongest results are coming from creating multiple, overlapping touchpoints with the same people. For my clients, that often looks like pairing consistent LinkedIn content with intentional community building, collaborations, and attending live events. Someone might meet you at an event, see you again in a professional community, read your LinkedIn posts for three months, and then hear your name through a trusted referral or collaboration. LinkedIn becomes the place where all of those interactions compound. The brands and individuals doing this well aren’t relying on one viral post to create demand. They’re building familiarity and trust across multiple channels, with LinkedIn acting as the connective tissue between them.”
“I pay attention to reach and impressions on LinkedIn, but I’m increasingly interested in the quality of engagement rather than simply the quantity. I recently had a Fortune 50 brand approach me about sponsoring my recent live event, and one of the things they specifically referenced was my LinkedIn comment section, especially the posts promoting the event itself. They noticed how engaged, supportive, and genuinely connected the people in my audience were.
“It was a great reminder that your comment section is part of your brand. People can tell the difference between an audience that has been cultivated over time and engagement that is performative or transactional. I’d rather have 30 comments from the right people who genuinely know and trust my work than 300 comments that don’t translate into relationships, referrals, partnerships, or business.”
Christina Westley, Founder & CEO, Real Social
"At Real Social, we remind our brand partners that reach matters, but it only tells you who saw it. It doesn't tell you who cared. That's why we look at the earned signals too: did people share it on their own, save it, bring it up later? Organic behavior is the clearest read on whether something actually landed."
